Bears take stage over Jordan's return

Posted: Saturday, January 19, 2002

Barbara BarkerNewsday

CHICAGO - They used to line up to get inside Michael Jordan's restaurant here. Now, the windows are boarded up and the marquee in front has a For Lease sign slapped across it. Like Michael Jordan's tenure with the Bulls, the restaurant's run ended because of a disagreement between Jordan and its owners. Now, it remains an empty and ghostly reminder of what Jordan once meant to this town.

That's right. Once meant. While the rest of the country is enthralled by what the 38-year-old Jordan is doing with the Washington Wizards, Chicago - the city of big shoulders and a bad basketball team - merely shrugs. So what if Jordan was on the cover of Sports Illustrated last week? So what if Jordan is returning to United Center today for his first game in Chicago as a Wizard? Reaction to Jordan's return here runs the gamut from utter indifference to downright disdain.

There are many reasons Chicagoans will not be throwing a parade for Jordan Saturday. The biggest, of course, was on full display Wednesday night at Mike Ditka's restaurant, a teeming temple of testosterone not far from Jordan's boarded-up place. Never mind that Ditka hasn't coached a game in Chicago in more than a decade. This place is packed. Think cigar smoke. Think $30 steaks. Think real guys talking about real sports.

Oh yes. For the first time since 1994, the Bears are in the playoffs and Chicago has worked itself into a lather. Some three hours after Jordan tips off at United Center, the Bears will host the Eagles at Soldier Field.

"This is a Bears town. Always was. Always will be," said Bill Adee, sports editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. "Compared with the Bears being in the playoffs, Michael Jordan's return is a blip on the screen."

At the beginning of the NBA season, Jordan's return seemed like a sure moneymaker and ticket brokers across the city were snapping up tickets from disgruntled season-ticket holders. Now, while making a killing on their Bears tickets, brokers might get stuck with the pricey seats at United Center.

"I can get you a Bulls ticket for $50. A Bears ticket will cost you $200 to $600," said Max Waisvisz, owner of Gold Coast Tickets. "I have $1,000 front-row seats on the floor for the Bulls. I've got two suites at the United Center left. Everyone who calls wants the Bears."

Jordan brought Chicago six NBA championships. He also quit on it twice. Once to play baseball and once, supposedly, to play never again. That turn of events makes Jordan's return a bit problematic for many Chicago sports fans, even former big-time Bulls fans. Getting up to watch Jordan play in a Wizards uniform is a bit like getting up to see your ex-wife get hitched to the loser down the street. Not only did Jordan leave the Bulls. But he left them for what was a horrible team.

Mike North, a hot-dog vendor turned sports-talk radio personality, sees Jordan as a traitor, plain and simple. So this week, during his afternoon show on WSCR-AM, he has tried to spearhead a drive to get rid of Jordan's statue at United Center.

"The way I see it, he's the enemy," North explained after Wednesday's show. "Basically, he's a traitor. He quit on us twice. He doesn't play for us anymore. I say we take the statue and dump it on his front lawn in Highland Park - except then his wife would probably try to get custody of that, too."

Ah yes, Jordan's wife. Juanita Jordan, filed for divorce earlier this month, which was big news here. Chicagoans are well versed in the details of the petition - the item most often cited being Juanita's desire to keep the 25,000-square-foot "marital residence" in a tony suburb of Chicago.

"Twenty-five-thousand square feet? What do you do when you lose your wallet?" North asked. "Do you think they take a bus from one end to another?"

Jordan, the king of sports-star pitchmen, cultivated a public image as a family man. When he retired the second time, Jordan cited the desire to spend more time with his three children.

"I thought he quit to have more time to carpool and drive his kids to school," Ditka's patron Greg Sunkel said. "Apparently, he's gotten tired of that."

Some Chicagoans' cynicism could stem from the fact that - whether or not the split with the Bulls was his idea - he left Chicago with a dreadful team. Anyone who knows the history of the Cubs understands that this town isn't afraid to embrace a loser. But a losing basketball team isn't the same. Chicago was never so much a basketball town as it was a winning basketball town. Because of Jordan, Chicago rode to global sports fame.

Now he's brought that fame somewhere else.

"With the Bulls being so bad, a lot of people take what he did, playing for the Wizards, as a slap in the face," said Kevin Hagginbothem, 32. "He went out on top and he should have stayed retired. He could have owned this town."